An interesting debate arose here this week regarding the differences and similarities between investing and gambling. This debate is largely semantic and arriving at an actual definition of investing or gambling, in my humble opinion, is almost as subjective as the meaning of happiness.

Perhaps most would agree that the primary commonality of investing and gambling is the wagering of money on an uncertain outcome; therefore, one could argue that the two words share the same general meaning with regard to the underlying respective wagering activity [Note: Of course one may debate the differences in meaning between 'investor' and 'trader' as well but for purposes of this post, we’ll assume that traders are investors]. (more)

Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer.

This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money's unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose unemployment insurance benefits will run out by the end of the year, placing extra strain on an economy that is just starting to recover from the worst downturn in a generation.

These are the most unfortunate of America's 14.5 million jobless: the ones whose benefits are drying up — in some cases after a record 18 months of government support. (more)

The U.S. economy faces a “significant chance” of contracting again after emerging from its worst recession since the 1930s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said.

“It’s not clear that the U.S. is recovering in a sustainable way,” Stiglitz, a Columbia University professor, told reporters yesterday in New York.

Economists and policy makers are expressing concern about the strength of a projected economic recovery, with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner saying two days ago that it’s too soon to remove government measures aimed at boosting growth. (more)

The cumulative advance-decline line for companies in the index set a record as the benchmark of precious metal miners’ shares climbed 8.6 percent to the highest since June 4 yesterday, John Roque, managing director in technical analysis at WJB in New York, said in a report. The line represents the number of daily gains for stocks in the index minus the number of declines since the beginning of 2001.

“The new high in breadth is a positive divergence and implies that many of the stocks in the index should follow,” Roque wrote. Roque was one of two runners-up in the technical analysis category in Institutional Investor magazine’s 2008 ranking of the top three analysts in each field. Technical analysts make predictions based on price and volume charts. (more)